


Honeyed

by sharkduck



Category: Stellamore (Visual Novel)
Genre: Burying Your Feelings, F/M, Halle Is Tortured By Thirst, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 16:16:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16876092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkduck/pseuds/sharkduck
Summary: Some feelings are better left ignored.





	Honeyed

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is set before Among Other Things!

Her hair looks like ink, splayed out in the grass as it is – he’s surprised to find it auburn when the light hits it just so, and his gaze is intense as he takes in the sight of sunlight speckling her face. They came out here on a whim – rather, _she_ came out here on a whim and he followed, trailing at her heels as an obedient hound would. His nose wrinkles at the comparison.

She rolls over onto her stomach, brushing hair away from her forehead, stalks of dry grass caught helter-skelter in the strands, and rests her chin on her hand while he sits beside her – legs crossed, closed off, as always.

“It seems like it’s been decades since I’ve been anywhere there’s grass.” As artificial as it is, out here in the palace gardens, squirreled away in a forgotten corner. “But I’ve only been here for a few months now. Do you ever get homesick?”

There she goes again. Trying to break down his walls.

“Are you homesick, or do you just not like the city?” Redirect. Reflect. Avoid. He’s very good at that. Yesui purses her lips – she’s not stupid, she knows exactly what he’s doing; part of him admires that, another part wishes she had less wits – and plucks a blade of dry grass from her hair.

“Probably a bit of both.” Halle reaches into the leather satchel between them, pulling out the bread she spent so long picking out. It’s fragrant, herbal when he breaks it in two, no acrid smell of poison or similar things as he hands her the larger hunk of loaf. She sits up to take it, folds her legs under her, brushes her hair over her shoulder.

(He’s entirely too interested in the way her hair moves, the curve of her neck. Was his mouth always this dry?)

Halle pulls out the jar of honey next (partly to distract himself), dipping a finger into the jar to taste it. No poisons, thankfully.

Perhaps he’s too paranoid.

Yesui giggling beside him makes his face heat up, and he wipes off his lower lip and clears his throat.

“Is it good, or did I buy sub-quality honey?” Teasing. She’s good at that. He rolls his eyes and dips his finger in again, holding out his hand.

“If you’re curious, why don’t you try it yourself?” He could tease too. Sometimes. The wry smile on his face feels foreign, but not unpleasant, a challenge he doubts she’d go through with. She’ll push his hand away and giggle and tease him some more. Everything will stay the same, despite the tiny part of him that sometimes thinks about what it would feel like to place his fingertip on her tongue, find the longing in his chest reflected in her eyes.

His breath and heart stop when she leans forward and catches his finger in her mouth.

Everything is suddenly too warm. His hand. His face. His skin. _Everything._ The blazing sun beating down on his bare neck is secondary compared to her eyes, molten bronze, boring holes into his being. He sees something there that he does not want to see.

(Oh, but he does want to see it – fantasized about it sometimes, when he was alone, and now it’s _real._ )

Memories flash in his head, the cherry stem tied into knots on her tongue, and _thoughts_ that he would rather not have – Halle makes an undignified sound from the back of his throat, a squawk that should have sounded like language but doesn’t, cheeks and skin and belly hot, and watches as she pulls away and brushes a strand of hair out of her face. She glances away and how _dare_ she have the audacity to flush then, cheekbones stained scarlet like they were painted on, resplendent with sunlight speckling her skin.

( _Good gods, please look at him again_.)

“Sorry,” she mumbles, and gingerly takes the jar of honey from him. He sits there dumbly, letting her do as she wishes, mouth agape and trying to fit the shattered remnants of his brain together to form a response.

“It’s fine,” is all he manages to say. It is most certainly not fine, because now everything has changed, seeing the fire and the raw want behind her eyes, knowing that whatever feelings he has –

He doesn’t dare even think the word _reciprocate,_ or anything similar, too afraid of the consequences.

Instead, Halle is content (perhaps content is the wrong word) to pretend like nothing happened, enjoying their sparse time alone in silence, watching the sunlight color her hair auburn and dapple her skin, ignoring the longing in her eyes when she glances at him.

Later on, he walks her back to the palace and watches her disappear into a throng of dignitaries, catches his lower lip between his teeth, and tries not to think about what could have been.


End file.
